It's Very Hard to Catch Him At It
by Lady Briett
Summary: A collection of stories about Tom Riddle where things go differently.


Tom Riddle was a cruel child.

Everyone knew he hanged Billy Stubbs' rabbit from the orphanage rafters, even if they weren't quite sure how. (He was good at climbing.)

He did…things to Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop. (There was a knife involved.)

Mrs Cole hoped desperately that someone would come take him away, to the madhouse, to the gaol, or perhaps—perhaps his father would come for him, or there would be some sort of trust where he'd be sent off to a boarding school _very_ far away.

But she knew that Tom was never quite awful enough for the first two, and something about Mrs Riddle, with her ragged dress and thick rural Yorkshire accent and being so terribly _young_ told her that the second two wouldn't be happening either.

(Tom wished to be taken away, too, wished that a man would come and tell him he was special and he would get to go somewhere where there were other people like him, but he also knew it wasn't happening. And he had long given up the hope of either his father or grandfather coming to retrieve him.)

So when it was time for him to start secondary school, it was off to the local grammar, the best an orphan boy like him could hope for. It was very impressive, everyone told him, that he'd managed to score one of the free places by doing so well on the entrance exam-

But Tom himself was not particularly impressed. It was not a difficult exam at all. He would never have _not_ gotten in.

Most of the other children at the school were the sons and daughters of the middle class, of accountants and doctors and lawyers. They were named not Tom and Billy and Amy but Thomas and William and Amelia. But Tom knew that even if he had a too big uniform and the cheapest notebooks available, he would come out on top. He always did.

He enjoyed the classes much more than the ones at primary. Latin was his favorite. It was especially enjoyable when the teacher, who insisted on being called Magister Campbellus, sat on his desk and told the pupils stories of his visits to Rome and Greece instead of drilling them on conjugations.

There was one girl who always seemed to know the answers. She carried around giant tomes of classical history books. Magister Campbellus liked to say who got the top marks on the tests, and it was always Clara. Tom was determined to beat her.

He was determined to beat the other children, too, but she was the only one who presented a real challenge. The other teachers didn't read out any sort of names, but he knew from glancing around at papers when passed back that he was doing much better. Of course he was.

School continued on.

And then in 1939 came the evacuation order. I think you might be a bit too old, said Mrs Cole to Tom, as she was shepherding the younger children out to the train station. He heard her mutter that in any case, no one would let him in their house.

He wondered if she was right.

The school year started warily. Everyone was on edge. Some children had been evacuated, but not all of them. Clara was still there, her hands gripping her books ever tighter.

The orphanage's children were back in January, except a lucky few who had been adopted by the homes they'd been evacuated to. Tom's schoolmates were back too, since nothing had happened. London was fine.

He got good marks, as usual. This year's Latin teacher was Mrs Smythe, who was rather more severe than Magister Campbellus. She was fond of using the ruler, on the backside for the unruly child, and on the desk for the sleeping one. Tom didn't like her, and neither much did anyone else.

And then in June, another evacuation. Tom again was left behind. There were older boys and girls left, too, but he saw very little of them. They were out working long hours in factories. Some ventured out into the world on their own, but the orphanage provided a bed and food, however sparse, for free, so many did not.

Some of them asked him if when he turned fourteen at the end of the year, if he too would leave school and head off for work. It was as shocking to him as the idea that he wouldn't leave was to them. They had no use for school.

They were not going to end up well, thought Tom sneeringly. Those sorts were the kind who wound up in the cheapest, shoddiest flats, drinking pint after pint every night at the pub, breaking their backs year and year for hardly anything, and with a huge passel of children they could scantily afford. He was going to be better than that.

The bombings started in September. It was terrifying.

They went on and on, night after night. There would be sirens and then it was a mad dash to the nearest Underground station, which was being used as a shelter.

One of the older boys died. They did not know what had happened to him at first, until one of his mates from the factory came round to tell Mrs Cole.

Tom cried.

Not for Johnny, but for the realization that that could be him. That he could just _die_ and there was _absolutely nothing_ he could do about it.

(Mrs Cole saw this and thought that perhaps Tom was not quite irredeemable after all.)

It let up in May. Much of the city was destroyed. But death no longer rained from the skies.

Tom's maths class was relocated to the gymnasium along with first and fourth year French and fifth year Biology, since their previous locations were in the part of the building that had been hit by one of the blasts.

The section on Pompeii was removed from the final examination, because the teachers had decided it wouldn't be the best curriculum topic that year.

When they handed back marks for the year, Tom could tell by Clara's expression that she hadn't done very well.

"I don't know what my parents are going to think," she said in a glum tone, apparently to no one in particular.

"Why, it's alright," said Tom. "There's a war on, and besides, I don't think Hitler got good marks either."

She glared. "We can't all be perfect like _you_ , Riddle," she said.

"I know," he replied, smiling.

The following year he had Magister Campbellus again for Latin, which he was very pleased by, but he was not so pleased by Chemistry. He was simply not very good at it. It made him angry. The other students completed the laboratory sessions with ease, but he struggled, no matter how many times he read the directions. And it was partner work, too, which made it worse. He felt very embarrassed. He didn't like being embarrassed.

While they were meant to be discussing their translation of a paragraph of Cicero's _In Catilinam_ , Clara turned to him and asked what he thought of Chemistry. They were in the same class, but sat at opposite ends of the room.

"I don't like it," he said.

"I don't either," replied Clara. "He always says my reports are horrid and anyone who wasn't in our class would never be able to understand what was going on by reading mine."

This interested Tom. While he was slow, and frequently got what he later learned were incorrect results, he was a very meticulous report writer. It was the only thing saving his marks.

"Perhaps we should work together, then, he likes mine," said Tom.

"That sounds like a clever idea," she said. She smiled at him.

This was when Tom truly realized for the first time that other people could be useful to him. Oh, certainly, he'd made the younger boys fetch him food and such, but never anything he truly couldn't do himself. Other people had skills and talents he did not, much as he was loathe to admit it.

Slowly but surely he climbed back to the top of the heap in Chemistry, or, he supposed, he and Clara climbed there together. He was finally winning over her in Latin now that they had moved to scansion. Frankly he found it rather repetitive, but it was easy enough. She was, however, somehow enjoying the actual content of the poetry they were reading, whereas he was not. He hardly liked poetry in English.

The incident happened on a Wednesday.

It started at lunchtime, when Marcus Spinner started talking about how he didn't like having to go to school with those who were there on free places, and how they ought to be out working jobs anyway, since it wasn't like people from that sort of background were ever going to amount to anything anyway.

Tom got angry.

He had a purloined lighter. Spinner had unattended books.

By the time the fire was put out, all of Spinner's books, his jacket, his friend Richardson's jacket, half of a curtain in the Greek classroom, part of Mr Carlyle's desk, several individuals' rucksacks, one apple of unknown ownership, and a great quantity of floor boards were either totally destroyed or nearly so.

The headmaster was not happy.

All of the students were gathered into the auditorium for an assembly. He screeched in his Lancashire burr about no one would be getting away with wrecking school property and other students' property with impunity, and that he expected better of them.

As soon as they were dismissed from the assembly hall, the rumors began to fly. Many students were not aware of what had happened before the headmaster's speech. The smoke was assumed to be from an unfortunate laboratory mishap.

Was it Mildred Curley, Spinner's spurned lady friend? Perhaps it was Lewis or Wright, angry at their friend for making a mockery of them on the football pitch earlier in the week? Many people thought it was poor Richard Hooper, who was a rather large boy who was known for being a bit too fond of fire and other dangerous things.

"I heard he breeds wolves," said Tom, when discussing Hooper. "Goodness, boys like that just don't know when they're going too far, do they?" Other students nodded in agreement.

But then someone who shared classes with him said that he was out sick that day, so it had to be somebody else.

Of all the names that came up, none of them were Tom.

He wouldn't do something like that.

When he returned to Wool's Orphanage that afternoon, Mrs Cole gave him a stare.

"I heard that was a fire at your school today, boy," she said.

"So there was," said Tom.

"You didn't have anything to do with it, I'm sure," said the matron, with a tone that implied she knew he had everything to do with it.

"Of course not, Mrs Cole," he said. "I would never."

The investigation dragged on. Lewis and Wright were with Spinner and Richardson at the time the fire was likely to have been started, and other people confirmed this. Mildred Curley did not have as strong an alibi, but the teachers felt that young ladies rarely set things on fire. Ann Johnson, Enid Talley, and Mary Fitzwilliam were also considered but likewise ruled out for that reason. Richardson's younger brother who was known to be a bit jealous was in class at the time, and a boy who had got into a fight with Spinner the year prior was too. All of the teachers in that hallway had been at lunch. Mr Carlyle said that he always made sure to lock the door behind him, which is why he allowed students to leave their belongings in his room. He couldn't fathom how the perpetrator got in.

It was discovered that Mrs Jennings at the end of the hall didn't lock her room, and every room had a connecting door between them that was rarely, if ever, locked. And then the rumors starting going around that it was Mrs Jennings, who wanted to have an affair with Mr Carlyle, but he turned her down. Or the teacher next to her, Miss Swinton, perhaps, or the teacher at the other end of the hall, who was reputed to have got into some sort of dodgy business dealings with Spinner's father.

The headmaster considered expelling Hooper (he had since caused a minor disturbance by bringing his over-sized hound to class one morning) until he was reminded that Hooper had been absent on the day of the fire. Eventually he gave up and promised angry parents it wouldn't happen again.

Tom knew he would be much more likely to get caught a second time, and that wouldn't do. His lighter stayed firmly in his satchel. He had also learnt from the incident that the gossip mill was both powerful and entertaining.

He wanted to start a rumor, something that would be even more amusing, last longer, and not make him worry about getting arrested. Tom was tired of Spinner and his lot, so he resolved to observe the other groups of students more carefully to see who would prove interesting.

There was Jane Lester, Dorothy Montgomery, and Louise Farley, who liked to giggle together in his English class, but then he realized they were giggling about the characters in _Wuthering Heights_. Pete Andrews and Willie Harris were from some part of London much rougher than Tom's, and many of the girls were seemingly frightened of them. They wouldn't do either, though. It had to be someone respectable who was revealed not to be respectable. Clara's friends? He knew far more about them than he wanted to. Carrie did this and Ashley did that and Nicholas doesn't like me and on and on she would drone. But frankly they were not that interesting, and more importantly, she would surely know he started it. She was good to have around. Finally he found an ideal target.

Alice Crompton. She was from one of those families that thought themselves much higher than they were, she always wore absolutely enormous bows in her hair, and Tom knew a lot of girls already disliked her for being snooty.

 _Alice Crompton kissed Willie Harris_? No. Not enough. _Alice Crompton is having Willie Harris' s baby_? Yes.

In Chemistry the next day he turned to Clara and started speaking in a voice that was just soft enough to make it sound like he was hiding something, but not soft enough that other people would be unable to hear him.

"I heard Mildred Curley talking this morning," said Tom. "She said—I couldn't believe what she said!"

"What was it?" asked Clara.

"Alice Crompton—she's—she's," and here he quieted his voice ever so slightly more "having Willie Harris's baby!"

The other people sat near them had rather shocked faces, so he knew they heard. Excellent.

"That's awful," said Clara. "It'll come out and she'll buy it a bow bigger than its head."

He heard people whispering about it all day. Jennie Wilson told him about it in maths, but made him promise not to tell anyone else.

At the end of the day, Mildred Curley approached him.

"Tom, someone told me that you told them that I said Alice Crompton was pregnant," she said, sounding a bit annoyed.

"They must have misheard," he replied. "I heard it from Mildred Shirley. She's a first year, I think she takes violin lessons with Alice's sister."

"Oh," said Mildred Curley. "As long as she's not having a baby with Marcus—do you think they'll be getting married, Alice and Willie?"

"I'd imagine so," replied Tom, nodding.

"I heard," she said, drawing in closer, "that Willie Harris's father left him and his mum after he was born. Maybe he'll do the same to Alice." She glanced behind him. "Oh, there's Enid, I shouldn't be keeping her waiting. Have a nice afternoon, Tom!"

He said nothing.

Would he have turned out like Willie Harris if his mother hadn't died?


End file.
